How much does manual busywork cost a service business?

For a team of 10 on average salaries of $85,000 AUD, manual busywork like data entry, follow-ups, invoicing, and reporting typically costs $300,000-$600,000 per year in lost productivity. Thomson Reuters found the average professional loses 5 hours per week to tasks that could be automated.

What tasks count as busywork in a service business?

Common busywork includes entering client info into multiple systems, chasing follow-ups and overdue payments, sending status updates, updating CRM records after calls, building reports, and creating project folders. These are repetitive tasks that follow predictable patterns and can be partially or fully automated.

How is the busywork cost calculated?

The calculator multiplies hours spent per person per week on each checked task by your team size and hourly employment cost (annual salary plus 12% superannuation, divided by 2,080 working hours per year), then annualises the total over 52 weeks.

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busywork is actually costing you.

Check the tasks your team does by hand. We'll calculate exactly what it's costing you, in hours and dollars, every year.

Tell us about your team

Team size (people)

Including yourself. Estimate is fine.

Average annual salary (AUD)

Rough average is fine. We add super automatically.

Tasks Checked

Hours / Week

Annual Cost

The Audit

Which of these does your team do by hand?

Check every task that applies. Hours shown are per person, per week. Industry averages for service businesses.

Client Operations 3 tasks

Entering client info into multiple systems ~3 hrs/wk
Chasing new client onboarding requirements ~2 hrs/wk
Creating project folders and workspaces ~1.5 hrs/wk

Follow-ups & Communication 3 tasks

Following up with unresponsive leads ~2.5 hrs/wk
Sending status updates ~2 hrs/wk
Answering the same questions repeatedly ~2 hrs/wk

Finance & Admin 2 tasks

Creating and sending invoices manually ~2 hrs/wk
Chasing overdue invoices ~1.5 hrs/wk

Data & Reporting 2 tasks

Updating CRM records after calls and meetings ~3 hrs/wk
Building weekly and monthly reports ~2.5 hrs/wk

Review & Compliance Admin 2 tasks

Preparing client review packs and meeting agendas ~2.5 hrs/wk
Chasing outstanding documents or signatures ~1.5 hrs/wk

Your Results

Here's what busywork is costing your team.

Based on your team size and salary. Updates live as you check or uncheck tasks.

Annual Cost of Busywork

Every year. On tasks that could be partially or fully automated.

Hours per week

0 hrs

Cost per week

Cost breakdown by category

What this number means

That’s not a sunk cost. It’s time your team is spending doing manually what a system could handle. Every week. Most of it is fixable.

The businesses pulling ahead aren’t working harder. They’ve just stopped doing this stuff manually.

Your Quick Start: Top 3 Tasks to Address First

Based on the tasks you’ve checked, these three have the highest time cost per week.

Check some tasks above to see your top priorities.

You’ve done the hard part.

Now let’s talk about what it would take to get those hours back.

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Find out what your team'sbusywork is actually costing you.